Scene # 1
“Onnume sonna purinjukka mattengaradi. Thookathila kanavu kandu bhayappedaralam. Thoongave mudiyarathillai. Enna seyyanam theriya maatengarathu.” She talked on and on. What is to be said now? I turned around to him. He is not smiling. Why isn’t he? He always used to. Didn’t he appear healthier in the hospital? He even cracked a joke or two. And we laughed all afternoon. Yeah, laughed. But now, he is not even smiling. Is this what’s like being unstable? Shuttling between extremes! I inched forward,and slid a finger into his palm. He held tight on to it for a second and then let it go. He wouldn’t hold it anymore, no matter how long I waited. Like a baby who plays with your finger, only till its fascination. “Antha hanumanoda manthram sollindu padutha porum. Appo pinne swapnam onnume varathu. Illatalum, enna swapnam kandu bhayappeda! Ellarum irukkomillaya inga.” Did he hear that? Yes, he did. He’s thinking now. Even trying to say something. He’s trying hard to recollect the stanzas, uttering the first line. Did he seek help? Perhaps not. He was trying to revive it back, and fill in the voids between the lines. And I was trying hard too. I couldn’t recollect it either! Was it a bad thing to remind him now, about the better times of life? He was visibly struggling to get words out of the brain, and sound out of the throat. One stopped cooperaying when the other gave in. It’s like, his thoughts and voice won’t ever give up for eachother. Could he ever say what he really meant, ever in life? I couldntjust stand there anymore. Others had left already. I told her and got up to leave, went upto him and held his hand for one brief moment and turned away to leave. And there he took it over from, “Budhir balam, yashodhairyam, nirbhayathvam arogatha. Ajadyam, vakpaduthvamcha, hanumath smaranath bhaveth!” Did he not smile now? I smiled.
Scene # 2
To be continued…
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